Writing is not apart from my living

“I am a Slow Learner”

During my various part time works in hospitality industry, I can say I’m a pretty quick learner. I learnt using the coffee machine and cash register pretty fast when I was working at Michel’s and Coffee HQ (that was three years ago!). However, in my spiritual growth in Christ, I’ve just realized today that I am a very slow learner! Seriously. Only God alone who is so incredibly patient enduring all my (mostly same) mistakes!

I yield for a taste of victory, I yearn for a taste of freedom from all of my shortcomings. In the past month I have been facing difficulties in many areas – in relationship, friendship, even in my ministry in praise & worship team at church. All the difficulties indeed have one single purpose: to shape my character to be more into the likeness of Jesus, and how it is so hard for me to endure the process!

One of those many ways is through a video I watched from YouTube, a sermon by Joseph Prince titled “The Importance of Fellowship Under the New Covenant”. I was taken aback when he discussed the same verse I received last Sunday (that I’d soon forgotten in the midst of my trials) – Ezekiel 36:26-27

I know I’ve discussed this at one of my previous entries yet as I said, I am a slow learner, I need to redig over and over the well of God’s Words to keep the flow of the Living Water overflowing my heart! So, these are the verses:

Ezekiel 36:26-27

“The Lord says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you,

I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you the heart of flesh.

And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws”

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you…”

When I was born again in Jesus Christ, that new heart has been in me! I have been a new creation, the old has gone! (2 Cor 5:17). That is the reason why I am so depressed when I know I have sinned against the Lord even over sensitive issues that ‘the old me’ wouldn’t even realize it was a sin, because now that new heart is telling me what’s in God’s heart! God has adopted me as His daughter (Ephesians 1:4). If I hadn’t have a new heart, I won’t feel depressed and sad over sins, and that means I’d still live under the bondage of sin!

But that holy discontentment is a sign that I have had a new heart, God Himself gave it to me when I was born again in Him. Praise God for this truth!

“I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees…”

Not only He has given me a new heart (not ‘He has changed’, He’s given me a completely new heart!), He also put His Spirit to dwell in my body, here, in my mortal body! The God of universe, put His being in me! So I know that greater is He who’s living in me than anyone’s living on this earth!

His Spirit will move me to follow His desires. Not “I” move myself to follow Him, but by His Spirit!

I simply have to follow the way He moves!

The sad feeling of making mistakes is not always a bad sign, it can be a good sign when you realize it is an indicator that you are truly changed in Christ! Sad is different with ‘feeling condemned’. Condemnation always and only comes from the devil to separate ourselves from the love of Christ. The devil knows nothing can ever separate us from God’s love (Romans 8:35, 39) so he tries to ‘persuade’ us to separate ourselves from His love (God cannot force our own free will, free will is a gift that God gave when He first created human – the most loved creature; Jesus didn’t die for animals or angels, He died for HUMAN, ALL human…).

I rejoice over this truth indeed. I am a slow learner, after I gain this truth I may (or will, to be exact) make another failure and mistake yet I know Jesus is a very patient Teacher.

He is the most loving Person ever lived in this earth. He is my High Priest, He knows my every single weaknesses. Nothing I can hide from Him. And I am not ashamed to say, “This is me Lord. You know me the best. You search to the deepest of my heart and my thoughts. Nothing I can hide from You.”

That what makes Jesus the most loving Friend I can ever have. A faithful friend who doesn’t compare me to anyone else, He loves and appreciates me just the way I am…

Lord Jesus, Thank You for a new heart and for Your Spirit who dwells in me. May Your works be more apparent in my life, God. May everyday I can see that truly You are real, You are here just beside me through my happy and sad times. Continue to change my life to be Your living testimony.

Thank You for ever bringing me to this world, Lord. To taste the goodness of living under Your abundant love.